Professional Adviser is delighted to announce the launch of the new Working Lunches in partnership with Baillie Gifford and First State Investments. Travelling across the UK to provide valuable market insights for Senior Financial Advisers.

Retirement Planner is committed to delivering best practice advise and discussion to our audience of professional retirement advisers and planners. This half day conference includes the opportunity for interaction and debate between delegates and speakers as they share unique insights.

Retail investors will have a small look-in via the float of the investment trust, but most of the shares will be placed with institutions and intermediaries ahead of the first day of dealing currently targeted as 17 November.

Shares in the company, to be called the Isis Property Trust, will of course be available to buy or sell on the London Stock Exchange once dealing starts.

The $120m fund will be based on an existing property portfolio managed on behalf of an Isis institutional client, which means the cash raised from the placing and float will not be left unused pending property deals, as would otherwise be the case.

Isis director and head of communications Jason Hollands says that the move to develop the fund rests on research showing significant demand for a property-based product.

"It's an issue of timing: we have taken soundings of IFAs and they have indicated to us that they wanted something like this," Hollands says.

"There are not many such products out there.

"The target is asset allocators who are looking to balance assets between fixed income, equities and property. One of the things we have picked up on is that some may be a bit nervous about relying on bonds for their income stream at present."

Other reasons that the product may attract attention include its closed-ended structure, which qualifies it for inclusion in Isas and Peps, Hollands adds.

And the focus on commercial rather than residential property, and relatively low-risk tenants, means the fund offers an attractive alternative to income from bonds, he says.

Isis managing director of Property Asset Management Paul Herrington says that commercial property also has advantages in that commercial rents are closely tied to the economic cycle, which looks to be improving.